Not just listening: Samsung TVs send out unsafe ‘unencrypted’ data

Not only do Samsung TVs “listen in” on their owners, but when they do, they send data to third parties without any encryption – making it easier to intercept and decode.

Well-known security researcher David Lodge from Pen Test Partners
conducted an attempted interception of a data packet sent from a
Samsung Smart TV, which receives data spoken into a microphone
attached to a remote, and sends it to the internet for
interpretation.

Lodge was surprised to discover that the data packets lacked
encryption – commonly used when sensitive data is being
transferred - so the words he spoke to the set could be discerned
as such in the data file.

“What we can see is it sending a load of information over the
wire about the TV, I can see its MAC address and the version of
the OS in use. After the word buffer_id is a load of binary data,
which looks audio-ish,”explained Lodge. “Based on the limited
information leaked above in plaintext, there’s plenty to suggest
that interesting data is making its way on to the interwebs from
your TV. Come on Samsung, how about at least protecting it with
SSL?”

Accusations of failure to sufficiently encrypt data, and store it
only in safe locations, have plagued other online products in
recent years, including Skype and chat program Viber.

Samsung said it was working to resolve the issue.

“Samsung takes consumer privacy very seriously and our
products are designed with privacy in mind. Our latest Smart TV
models are equipped with data encryption and a software update
will soon be available for download on other models,” said a
statement emailed to the Guardian newspaper.

Last week, there was considerable outcry when Samsung owners
discovered that under their terms for using a Smart TV remote,
they were warned that “if your spoken words include personal
or other sensitive information, that information will be among
the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your
use of voice recognition.”

It is impossible to access the data packets without hacking into
the internet pathway between the TV and the servers to which it
sends its data – a task that requires significant expertise,
though easily within the scope of the NSA, GCHQ or any other
intelligence agency.

Lodge reassures that by design the remote listening function does
not record and process data, unless it is switched on by the
user, but said that dangers remained.

“The potential for a rogue firmware update enabling
‘snooping’ is significant,” wrote Lodge.